


Kinswoman-redeemer

by nnozomi



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: Coming Out, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-16 00:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14152266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnozomi/pseuds/nnozomi
Summary: Miranda has a word with her mother.





	Kinswoman-redeemer

“Well,” said Miriam West at length, sipping her gin and tonic, “I suppose I’m glad you told me. To be honest, I never would have thought you would bring anything so personal to me before you told your father.”

Miranda swallowed. What, exactly, did one say to that? _I’m sorry we’ve never gotten along_ , apart from being trite and clichéd, was inaccurate on pretty much all counts. “I thought you might take it in more easily,” she said finally.

“I can’t say on what grounds. Your father certainly knows a number of confirmed bachelors through his theatrical connections, and most of my acquaintances are respectable married ladies.”

“How tiresome for you,” said Miranda before she’d realized what was going to come out of her mouth. Fortunately and unexpectedly, her mother chuckled.

“I hope you haven’t taken this step just because you find the idea of being respectably married too tiresome for words.”

“It’s not a _step_ I’ve _taken_ ,” Miranda protested, her gaze glancing off her mother’s in a split instant of sharing the joke. “It’s—what I am—I couldn’t be anything else, any more than I could be a Gentile, for instance.” Just too late, she remembered Aunt Sarah—Sister Simone—and bit her tongue.

Miriam let the not-quite-allusion pass, although Miranda didn’t miss the momentary tightening around her eyes, the nearly private face—Miranda wasn’t sure her mother had a fully private face—coming closer to the usual public one. Her voice was smooth, however, when she said “Well, I shan’t be disowning you or wailing in the marketplace over the loss of any future grandchildren, so you may set your mind at rest on that point.”

“ _Grosse kinder, grosse tsuris_?” Miranda suggested helpfully. “Mummy—Mama—are you going to tell Papa?”

The gaze Miriam bent on her daughter was complex. Watching her mother decide what to say, Miranda recognized that for all the pointed badinage, Miriam understood exactly why it was to her mother, rather than to the father with whom she shared all the ties of affection as well as deep and genuine liking, that Miranda had brought her truth. As the silence stretched, she wondered how much—if at all—she had hurt her mother by the implicit admission that it was Miriam by whom she could bear to be disowned.

“ _Grosse_ or _kleine_ ,” Miriam said finally, “your Papa has never found you anything but _naches_ , and I doubt he ever will. In either case, this is not the time for me to begin coming between the two of you.”

Miranda sighed, and realized that her hands were trembling. “You never have,” she said, wondering if it was thanks or accusation.

“If against all odds you end up with daughters, Miranda Ruth, you’ll know why. In every way that matters you’re like me.”

Am I? Miranda wondered, and realized that, in her mother’s eyes, her strained confession of a few minutes ago wasn’t counted under “every way that matters.” The idea was liberating and lonely. “Just as well,” she said aloud, for the record, for truth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was rereading other people's lovely Forest fics and this happened.
> 
> "Grosse kinder, grosse tsuris" is a Yiddishism meaning something like "the bigger your children get, the more trouble they are," while "naches" is sort of the opposite of "tsuris," meaning joy or pride.
> 
> I do wish we had a canonical first name for Miranda's mother.


End file.
